Soundzine

No Place Like

Dorothy, where

       are your slippers? I wonder
      if witchery came in your sleep
    and took back her own—past the ankles
  and down to the heels, baring toes
    all farmhouse and cold—O my dearest!
      what fancy, what vision was lost
        when red left your feet.

                    No tornado,

        no reverent slit in the storms
      will bow to you now; not the monkeys
    quite covered in wings—but perhaps
  in far-distant Kansas you're watching
    your twinkling and barefooted feet—
      and weighing up real and pretending,
        and glad you chose toes.

                                                                                                                         © Rae Threnoworth

Lay Her Path With Love

split along me this orchard

    in spring: a surprise, like jesus

  on a string

               - split upon me a beginning,

    ten new pits in the peaches

  and a ready voice

                     (illumination in its season,

  and in its mounting shout illumination

    in its time)

                 to fight the flowers—call me

  courtiers of barley, a queen!

                                a harvester

                      biting the bees—the lemongrass
                           
                              caught in a lean—
       
    a daughter to rejoice,

        a striking spring.

 
                             these blossoms cherry ash

                          from a dirt cigar—


   (germination in her breathing,

                and in the ready voice germination

    in her prime)

                    these blossoms: stamens, pistons
                       
                        bashing pollen, bashing

                          silent into sound—


        the squat earth rising, flexing

            heady, punches up a mound


 
  and spits a new beginning on

  the flowers seeding

                      in the ground.

 

        stub it, stub it.

        ten freshborn singers
 
                              stub them, stub them,

                      one-twist foot

              romp-stomp them,

                                split the orchard down.

 
    then lay her path with god, my love:

      then let the barley spill a tongue

    among the rising sun—then lay her path

      with love, my god: that lemongrass

    may spit, may spout a running count

      of gendered angels; lay her path with god,

    my love, then lay her path with love—

 
                  (illumination in its season,

             and in its mounting shout


                           illumination in its time—


             so lift your string above the field

    and dip the saviour in its reason.)

Sarah Stanton is a poet, musician and biophile, currently residing in Perth, Western Australia. A trained opera singer, she draws on her musical experience in both the creation and performance of her written works. She has had little formal poetry education, although she did pat a duck once. This will be her first magazine publication.